Ensemble Aventure
Ensemble
Ensemble Aventure stands for adventure, for daring to set out into unknown sonic and imaginative realms. Since its foundation in 1986, Ensemble Aventure has been committed to dialogue and exchange on an equal footing with artists from across the world. The ensemble does not identify itself as a rigid structure, but as a place where the perspectives and passions of its members come together, enriched by their different cultural, biographical, and musical backgrounds. The Freiburg-based ensemble is dedicated to contemporary chamber music at the highest level, concurrently placing high value on its work in the areas of education and outreach. Ensemble Aventure thus enjoys a wide radius of action between presentation and participation, between contacts all over the world and local participation, between performing interculturally relevant concert programmes, and reaching out to people in communal and rural areas. Ensemble Aventure stands for communal observation, awareness, and liveliness, the connection, exchange, and wellbeing of people in its locality and beyond. Its message is that new music is part of life, which becomes richer when people come together, listen, talk to each other, and broaden their perspectives.
With its renowned Freiburg concert series, intensive contacts with composers worldwide, numerous commissions, hundreds of world premieres, international concert appearances, around 25 CDs and numerous projects and publications on the communication of new music, Ensemble Aventure has played a decisive role in shaping contemporary music and bringing it to a wide audience. The founding motive and fundamental aim of Ensemble Aventure is to combine the avant-garde with the tradition from which it originates, to shed new light on the seemingly familiar, to rediscover the forgotten and suppressed, to promote the radically new and to unite this in meaningful programmes that span epochs and cultures.
Its repertoire ranges from the Viennese School and the American avant-garde to Dada, Fluxus and conceptual art through to music of the immediate present. In particular, Ensemble Aventure gives a voice to marginalised perspectives. This is seen in the ensemble’s commitment to the music of politically persecuted and repressed composers to whose rediscovery Ensemble Aventure has made a significant contribution. Moreover, it is demonstrated in the ensemble’s long-standing commitment to the contemporary music of Latin America and other non-European compositional worlds.
Prizes from the European Economy, the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and the German Record Critics' Award testify to the ensemble's high artistic quality and diverse range of activities. Ensemble Aventure’s rehearsal and concert venue in the vaulted cellar of the Elisabeth Schneider Foundation in Freiburg is provided by a unique patronage.
Ensemble Aventure is institutionally supported by the City of Freiburg and the State of Baden-Württemberg / Freiburg Regional Council.
Members
Phoebe Bognár
Phoebe Bognár (*1997) is an Australian-born flutist, performer and composer based in Basel, Switzerland.
Her musical practice is characterised by a variety of genres, art forms, and disciplines, including gestures, voice, various flutes, theatre, and electronics. She has already performed with numerous renowned ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble Aventure, and Klangforum Wien. Phoebe has been a permanent member of Ensemble Aventure since April 2024.
She studied contemporary music performance at the Musik Academy Basel FHNW and International Ensemble Modern Akademie. Her current projects include ongoing collaborations with composers Anna Sowa and Zara Ali, as well as her instrumental and performance duos iipm project and press.any.key. Phoebe is a recipient of the Fritz Gerber Prize 2024, which is awarded by Michael Haefliger, co-founder of the Lucerne Festival, and the composer Heinz Holliger. Through art, Phoebe seeks to create new connections and understandings – to each other and to the world we live in.
Andrea Nagy
Andrea Nagy was born in 1978 in Budapest. She initially studied at the Béla Bartók Conservatory and the Franz Liszt Academy of Music. This was followed by diploma studies in Freiburg with Dieter Klöcker and Jörg Widmann. She continued her studies in Ernesto Molinari’s soloist class at the Bern University of the Arts and was awarded the best soloist diploma of the year in 2006. She rounded off her artistic training by studying bass clarinet with Ernesto Molinari.
Andrea Nagy has received various prestigious first prizes, has performed at numerous international music festivals, on various radio, CD and TV recordings and regularly takes part in world premières and has worked with conductors and composers such as Heinz Holliger, Johannes Kalitzke, Brian Ferneyhough, Enno Poppe and Helmut Lachenmann.
She is a member of Ensemble Linea (Strasbourg), oh ton Ensemble (Oldenburg), Ensemble Experimental of the SWR Experimentalstudio Freiburg and Ensemble Interface (Frankfurt).
Andrea Nagy has been a permanent member of Ensemble Aventure Freiburg since July 2016.
Wolfgang Rüdiger
Wolfgang Rüdiger, born in 1957, studied music education (main subjects piano and bassoon, analysis and composition with Nicolaus A. Huber), philosophy, and pedagogy in Essen; bassoon studies with Karl-Otto Hartmann in Freiburg, artistic university degree 1986; studied musicology with H. H. Eggebrecht, doctorate in 1989; co-founder, bassoonist and artistic director of Ensemble Aventure Freiburg from 1986 to 2022, own concert series and international concert activities, numerous world premieres and radio productions, conception of and participation in around thirty CDs. 1995-96 Training as a respiratory pedagogue according to Parow. After teaching at the Mönchengladbach and Freiburg music schools and lecturing at the Freiburg University of Music from 1998 to 2001, Professor of Instrumental Pedagogy and Bassoon at the University of the Arts Bremen, since 2001 Professor of Music Pedagogy/Artistic-Pedagogical Training at the Robert Schumann University Düsseldorf. Permanent contributor to the magazine Üben & Musizieren, board member of INMM Darmstadt and author and editor of numerous musicological and pedagogical essays and books on topics such as music and the body, ensemble playing and improvisation, interpretation, new music and music education.
Delphine Gauthier-Guiche
Delphine Gauthier-Guiche began her musical career as a pianist. She first studied horn, natural horn and chamber music in Paris, then continued her horn studies at the Musikhochschule Freiburg with Professor Bruno Schneider and her natural horn studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Thomas Müller. In addition to playing in orchestras (including the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden/Freiburg), her main focus is on chamber music and solo performances in the field of new music. She is a permanent member of Ensemble Aventure Freiburg and Ensemble Reflexion K in Eckernförde, and performs with various other ensembles such as Collegium Novum Zurich, Contrechamps in Geneva and oh ton in Oldenburg. She is particularly interested in performance and free improvisation. In addition to her musical activities, Delphine Gauthier-Guiche has dedicated herself to painting for many years.
Nicholas Reed
Nicholas Reed has performed as a conductor, percussion soloist and chamber musician at numerous festivals in Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, Mongolia and the Ukraine, as well as for a number of radio stations. He is a lecturer in percussion and ensemble conducting at the Freiburg University of Music and at the music academies in Basel and Zurich (ZHdK). He has been a guest lecturer at leading music academies in Europe, Asia and the USA. Nicholas Reed has been a permanent member of Ensemble Aventure Freiburg since 2015. He regularly teaches at the Federal Academy for Musical Youth Education in Trossingen as well as at further education and training courses in Germany and abroad. Reed studied percussion at the Royal College of Music, London, at the Conservatoire Supérieur National de Musique et de Danse, Paris, and at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. He studied conducting with Johannes Schlaefli, James Lowe and Peter Rundel, among others. His most recent research projects deal with rehearsal pedagogy and the teaching of new music in the field of amateur music.
Akiko Okabe
The Japanese-born pianist Akiko Okabe first studied with Professor Yoshimi Tamaki in Tokyo before coming to Germany to continue her training as a pianist and chamber musician. In Freiburg she studied with Professor James Avery, who opened up the world of new music to her. She also attended seminars by Prof Mathias Spahlinger and played his piano concerto at her graduation. She received further pianistic and musical impulses from Prof Stefan Litwin.
Since 2006 she has been a permanent member of the Ensemble Aventure Freiburg, with whom she has premiered numerous works in Europe, South America and Asia. She has also given masterclasses for composers and performers in these countries.
She has released several CDs, including one by Michael Reudenbach, which was honoured with the German Record Critics’ Award. She has worked closely with many other composers, including Carola Bauckholt, Georg Friedrich Haas, Nicholas A. Huber, Bernard Lang, Isabel Mundry, Helmut Oehring, Salvatore Sciarrino and Iris ter Shiphorst.
Friedemann Amadeus Treiber
Friedemann Amadeus Treiber was born in Offenburg in 1971. He received his first violin lessons at the age of five from his brother Felix. After studying with Wolfgang Marschner and Hansheinz Schneeberger, he graduated with honours from the Basel University of Music in 1991/92 with a teaching and soloist diploma for violin. He has won prizes at national and international competitions and performs internationally as a chamber musician and soloist, as well as making radio and CD recordings. His repertoire includes works for solo violin, violin concertos and chamber music from all eras. He is concertmaster of the Ensemble Phoenix Basel, a member of the Basel Sinfonietta and principal of the Ensemble Aventure Freiburg. He also plays the piano and viola and is very active as a composer. He has been a lecturer for violin at the Kalaidos University of Music Switzerland since 2016.
Katharina Schmauder
Katharina Schmauder (*1994) studied composition with Moritz Eggert, violin with Ingolf Turban and viola with Sylvie Altenburger at the music academies in Munich and Freiburg. Her compositional work has taken her to the Musiktheater im Revier Gelsenkirchen (children’s music theatre), Theater Plauen-Zwickau (ballet, opera) and the Staatstheater Augsburg (drama). Concertante works include a cello concerto as well as music for children’s choir, for wind orchestra and chamber music.
As an interpreter, she is primarily interested in contemporary music: in interdisciplinary works she encounters literature, dance and puppetry. Her solo recital “Le violon noir” opens up new worlds of sound on the electric violin. In the Zentaur Quartet she dedicates herself to young repertoire for string quartet. She has been a permanent member of Ensemble Aventure as a violist since 2021. From 2023 she will also play viola with the Holst Sinfonietta.
In 2018, she spent six months studying at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Since autumn 2021, she has held a teaching position for chamber music at the Freiburg University of Music.
Ellen Fallowfield
Cellist Ellen Fallowfield is an active performer and researcher in the field of contemporary music. She studied violoncello and contemporary music at the Hochschule für Musik Basel, the Zurich University of the Arts and the Graz University of the Arts. As part of research grants from the SNSF and the Maja Sacher Foundation, she created the smartphone app Cello Map and the internationally popular website www.cellomap.com at the Basel University of Music. As an interpreter of new music, she regularly performs at important international festivals and is a member of various ensembles in the Basel area. She has been a member of Ensemble Aventure since 2020. Close collaboration with established and promising young composers is an essential part of her work. Ellen Fallowfield is head of the Specialised Masters programme in New Music, Research, Music in Context and Chamber Music at Bern University of the Arts.
Johannes Nied
Johannes Nied was born in Freiburg in 1959 and studied double bass with Wolfgang Stert at the local music academy, attended masterclasses with Fernando Grillo in Perugia and passed his artistic final examination in 1984. He is a co-founder of the Ensemble Aventure Freiburg and a guest musician with the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt and Klangforum Wien. In addition to his work as a performer, Johannes Nied is also active as a composer. Works by him have been (first) performed by the Pellegrini Quartet, Ensemble Aventure and the Schola Heidelberg, among others.
